X-adventure Bend, OR

Last weekend MerGeo.com competed with the big ones.... !! X-adventure is a series promoted by a bunch of french professionals that have been putting on adventure races for years if not decades.. some of the earliest Raid Guloises were put on by the same team of guys. The organisation is perfect, almost swiss-like clockwork, and a huuuuuuge posse of volunteers, staff, vehicles, helicopters, and film crews from all over the world. It is a world championship qualifier, four races on three continents... and all the best teams in the world present.
I raced with Eric Bone, Brook Nunn, and William Emerson and we finished 26th out of 52 teams... not bad considering the strength of the teams, and a humbling experience...
We did well except for a few major screwups, but its part of racing, broken compass, flats, cramps while paddling, and suboptimal team composition (only three race per section, one sits out, and the team needs to be evenly distributed for maximal performance), but we certainly had a good time and the weather was gorgeous too!


Team MerGeo ready to head out into the night...


Eric in Action....


Eric Bone finishing the X-adventure raid

Pod of whales, penalty boxes and another DART win on the fly...

Two BEAST races ago we had 42 racers for out first midweek AR and thought that was great... now we just got 89 racers to do our third one yesterday! It was an amazing race in so many ways... the massive amount of racers, their smiles and race efforts.. three girls (12, 13, 15 years old) racing with their parents... a friend of mine who lost his leg only 15 months ago racing with his wife as team tripod (what an inspiration bouncing back from such a horrible kayak accident)... and to top it all off Eric Bone had made up one of the best special tests thus far... involving the Orca Fin Project in Magnusson Park, where if people got the answers wrong (based on navigating through the fins) they had to get to the penalty box... here is the hillarious race report from Missing Link's Shannon Cortez.


It was held at the UW Waterfront Activity Center and racers paddled for LeMans Start times later that evening... DART paddled the fastest (Glen and Aaron) and kept the lead until the end, but Ben Hall gave em the best run for the money as usual!

Clif has now started supporting our series and sponsors are lining up for this great opportunity to help develop the sport at the grassroots level, this is going to be a lasting adventure race series!


Jerry and RVG at prerace meeting smalltalk


Boats coming in at full speed....


Racers getting ready for the LeMans start...

Orienteering Section and Special Task (navigatoin involving the Orcas Fin project at Magnuson park)


Finish, Food, Festivities!!

Bike China!!

Yumay and I got married about a month ago and decided to do a very memorable honeymoon... and that's when she came up with mountain biking in China... now that s my side of the story, on a steep climb up to a 14'ooo foot pass in the blistering heat she told me it was my idea and I dragged her out there, but I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle :)

Anyhow, it was a great honeymoon, we had a ton of fun and yes, it was hard, but not that we expected this to be a walk in the park.... I think it was on that same hill that I had her on tow and she looked up, smiled and said "I married into the harsh life now, didn't I?" hehe, yes you did dear :)


We found Peter online at www.bikechina.com and he was extremely helpful and very flexible on what we needed from him, he usually organizes all-inclusive bike trips but all we needed were two bikes, all the peripherals and a couple of maps and we were good to go... he got us all that for a very fair prize, and was very helpful onsite when he picked us up with his recumbent bicycle! Probably the only one in china, but certainly the only one in Chengdu, he gets a lot of stares and laughters about it....

So after a day of exploring Chengdu we were off... we had planned a very nice route through the mountains to cut from Chengdu to Lanzhou, and I knew that even at best case scenario we would probably not make it without taking some buses, especially since we intended to hike and horseback ride along the way as well....


Yumay is all packed and ready to embark on the bike trip of her life!

First day took us through the outskirts of Chengdu (a 10+ million city it takes a few hours to bike out of it!) to some ancient irrigation systems north, about a 50 mile ride away... we left very early (4am) and made it there, hiked around and had enough time to get into the mountains before dark, since we wanted to get away from the massive traffic early on....

We made it up into the mountains quite a bit, though in the later afternoon the skies opened up and we were soaked through and through, it is the rainy season after all.. fortunately we were still at low elevations and in the south so it was quite ok temperature wise.. we cycled with these three teenagers that did a 2 day bike trip, with their beater bikes and in jeans and cotton tshirts... man o man!



Roadblock!! Glad we werent biking right when that happened (15 minutes prior!)


Little rest and warm cup of noodle soup with our new friends..


Rainy season... very very rainy!


Yumay s about to get VERY wet and dirty :)


Enjoying the terrific food of the Sichuan Province


A little rest on the bus...

The next day with combination of rising early, biking and taking the bus we made it up to our first destination, Songpan, where we did a two day horseback riding tour to hot springs in the mountains... well they were not really hot springs but the smelled sulfury and came out of the ground so two out of three counts I guess :)
We had a great time up there, riding horses all day and then camping in old fashioned yurt style while our guides cooked us some yummy dinner....


Horseback riding in the mountains...


Enjoying a cup of tea...


Gorgeous scenery...


Dinner, not the most "presentable" but very good!


Tired legs...

After that trip it was time to head out and get three solid days of Biking in, each day with thousands of feet of elevation gain.... we were the only Bikers, in fact according to the locals the only bikers ever they had seen there... I really wonder if that is true because this seems such an obvious trip to make, local or foreginer.. sure its hard when not speaking the language but one can get through (fortunately Yumay is fluent and I am quite ok at speaking it so it was easier for us)... and the sceneries were just a million bucks!!

The climbs were long and hard, but the payoff was plenty with mountain tops in the 6000m range, and being totally immersed in the non-touristy china... well when not being in the actual tourist spots.. HuianLongSi and JiuZaiGou are laden with chinese tourists, proably because they are so beautiful, but once one goes beyond the main spots the views are just as spectacular but one finds themselves alone instead of immersed in a sea of "follow the flag" and "wear the same hat"...

This was a terrific trip, and we will be back in probably two years either finishing up the trip to Lanzou (which we only got about half way) or going down south more.....


On our way to HuanLongSi...

Incredible waters...


HuanLongSi

JiuZaiGou, where "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" was filmed....